I scream, you scream, we all scream for…

ICE CREAM of course!

I have had a lot of fun over the past couple of years with my ice cream maker from Ashley and Paul.  I’ve made some incredibly uber creamy vanilla ice cream, made mostly with heavy whipping cream.  Brother Dear took a bite and exclaimed, “Wow.  That’s creamy.  Really, really good.  I feel my arteries clogging.”  I’ve wanted more ever since.

Another time I made up some pea ice cream.  Hehe.  The peas were kinda chewy.  Very strange, but I did end up enjoying it.

A couple weeks ago after making some yogurt, I had to try making frozen yogurt.  Here was the “recipe” I created to start with:

Frozen Yogurt

1 ½ c plain yogurt
⅛ c honey
1 banana
¼ t almond extract
1 t cinnamon

Instructions:  Blend all.  Put in ice cream maker.

It was good.  It satisfied my craving for ice cream; it wasn’t too sweet, but it was nice and dessert-y-ish.  I definitely enjoyed it.  However, it seemed like it could be improved on, especially after putting it in the freezer; it turned into a block of frozen yogurt.  Letting it sit out for a bit before eating restored it, but still…  I wanted to improve on the texture.

One of my sweet roommates made her mom a cake last week that used 10 egg whites.  She couldn’t bear to throw out the egg yolks, thankfully, and mentioned a few days later that she wasn’t sure what she was going to do with them.  I was certainly up to the task of finding things to make with them!  I browsed various websites and recipes today and ended up trying 3 new recipes as a result.  How fun!

One was a new ice cream recipe.  I was not happy about the idea of having raw egg yolk in my ice cream, but when I found this recipe where you cook it stovetop first, needless to say, I was pretty excited.  Did I get a nap this afternoon?  Heh, yeah right.  I had so many ideas running through my head for what to do with the egg yolks.  My brains were pretty scrambled.

So here’s how I tweaked the recipe  (um, maybe chopped, spliced, butchered, and pieced back together is more like it) to be GAPS-friendly!

Vanilla Frozen Yogurt 

INGREDIENTS

• 2 large egg yolks
• 1 very ripe mashed banana
• 1 c yogurt
• vanilla
• salt
• 3 T honey
• 1 T extra virgin olive oil  (opt)
• cinnamon

METHOD

1 Blend ½ c yogurt, vanilla, honey, olive oil and the salt in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Heat until just before it starts to simmer (do not let simmer). Remove from heat and let stand 10 minutes.

2  In a medium bowl, beat together the yolks and half the banana until thoroughly smooth and creamy.

4 Whisk in the stove-top mixture in a slow stream into the yolk mixture to temper it. SLOWLY.

5 Cook all over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens.  (180°, 5 to 7 minutes) Remove from heat and immediately put in ice-water bath while mixing in the remaining ½ banana and remaining ½ c yogurt, to stop the mixture from overcooking.   Add cinnamon.

5 Stir until completely chilled.

6 Put in ice cream maker!  Do not over-churn.

SO.  GOOD.  SO.  GOOD.  Almost worth getting no nap this afternoon.

The picture was taken right after emerging from the ice cream maker.  Well, after I had a taste.  Several tastes.  Spoons full.  To make sure it was good.

Now after an hour in the freezer, it has firmed up even more nicely and still has great ice cream-like texture.   I’ll have to update later on how it does even longer in the freezer.
[edit:  Up to a couple hours in the freezer, it had great consistency.  When I checked it after 24 hours, it had frozen pretty solid.  But pulling it out and letting it thaw a bit returns it to creamy yumminess!]

So, is it weird that I added olive oil?  I wanted something to help it stay creamy and not turn to ice in the freezer.  I have no idea if it helps.  I’ve never heard of adding it to ice cream. [edit:  So olive oil turns solid in the freezer!  Didn’t know!  So, I really don’t expect that it helped much…]